So I am not here to proclaim that Lennon and McCartney constituted to combined into some sort of musical Jesus reincarnate. I am not here to jam down any fellow young persons throat that there existed, in The Beatles, a musical act that no other generation will ever create. Yet, after a heated conversation with a fellow philosopher of the tunes, I felt like it could only help to communicate a couple examples of the forgotten ingenuity of The Beatles. While most all of us are aware of their once unfathomable worldly popularity and “influence” on rock n’ roll, and indeed music itself thereafter, we (as in those who were not around for Beatlemania) mostly reduce their influence to “great song-writing.”

-Reduce an artist to song-writing you say? What kind of reduction is this, isn’t that what an artist aspires to be?-

Yes, I don’t deny this as an essentiality; however I purpose that their influence upon music goes deeper, that they introduced to us techniques and sounds never seen prior and that since we simply cast off as common. This is why I say that it would be an injustice to file their influence solely under music composition, and this is what I believe is lost upon every generation since that wasn’t present for their evolution, that they brought so much Novelty to the art of recording music as to make it unrecognizable in their wake. That this is why they are held up by so many people to such, almost religious, esteem to the confusion of many younger people. Yet because I feel it unfortunate that these occurrences of sound-recording invention due to the Fab Four are lost upon us now, and that the true scope of their influence upon music is not remembered well. So I present some of the best example of the forgotten novelty of the Fab Four:

CLOSE MIC’ING: Geoff Emerick altered the standard method of recording a drum kit while trying to accommodate the Beatles requests for different sounds. He removed the front skin of the bass drum and put a mic inside the drum itself rather than in front of it (doing this was actually against the rules at Abbey Road Studios and done initially in secret). This gave each hit of the drum more attack and less boominess. He also moved microphones closer to each separate part of the kit, where traditionally they were placed 3-6 feet away to pick up an open, ambient-sounding representation of the whole drum kit. Emerick ended up close micing most instruments thereafter. This technique, due to the vastly superior sound of the drums on their earlier records compared to the competition, was soon copied by most and has since become the standard way of mic’ing a drum kit for anyone.

AUTOMATIC DOUBLE TRACKING: Lennon became tired of singing over his tracks to create a chorus effect. Ken Townsend’s answer, who was one of the engineers at the time, was to pass the original vocal take through another tape machine, which would play back with a slight delay in relation to the original. The reproduction was also manually shifted in pitch by a very small amount. The result mimicked the differences in timing and pitch produced by two different takes of a vocal line being played back at the same time. This can be heard particularly in Good Morning Good Morning and throughout their subsequent albums.

FEEDBACK: The song I Feel Fine, recorded on 18 October 1964, starts with a feedback note tone produced by plucking the A-string on McCartney’s bass guitar, which was picked up on Lennon’s semi acoustic guitar. George Harrison said that the feedback started accidentally when a guitar was placed on an amplifier but that Lennon had worked out how to achieve the effect live on stage. This is the first known instance of using guitar feedback creatively. They essentially took a sound everyone equated with something going wrong and made it a mainstay in the rock n’ roll guitarist repertoire. 

BACKWARDS MUSIC: The song Rain has the first example of a backwards vocal in recorded music. John Lennon had taken a tape of the song to his house to see what he could do with it and accidentally played it backwards, which he liked. Although Paul is known for claiming to have done this many times on personal recordings at home, Lennon was the first one to use the effect on an album. This technique may seem so obvious to us now, but again, undone before the Beatles. 

SPEAKERS AS MICS: Paul’s bass also got a new sound beginning with the single, Paperback Writer, when Ken Townsend decided to use a loudspeaker as a microphone (they are essentially the same device, with a reversal of the energy movement) then positioned it directly in front of the bass speaker so the moving diaphragm of the second speaker made an electric current. By doing this he created for himself a device that would pick up all the lows, and only the lows, of the bass amp. This gave The Beatles a passive loudness to their bass lines, that we would consider normal, but had never been heard from a recording at that time. This would forever after be emulated in popular music.

CRAZINESS: The Beatles always kept pushing the envelope, including such ideas as writing guitar notation out backwards, playing it as written, recording it, then playing it backwards for the final take. A much more labor-intensive project than simply recording the guitar and playing that backwards. This ambitious effect can be heard on both I’m Only Sleeping and Tomorrow never knows. 

Written by Sean Poynton Brna

I suppse one could call the musical creations of William Elliot Whitmore, the 29 year old who hails from Iowa’s Mississippi banks, blues. I guess one could call it bluegrass, not in the traditional sense, but in the shared-roots and shared philosophy sense. One would not be in error to make either of these claims, yet it would also be misleading to anyone of the current generation, as you and I surely are. You see, his musical creations, for this author, are decidedly of the muses of a time more than a century behind us. In 2009 Whitmore released “Animals In The Dark,” his 5th full length album, a work in which he does not wish to challenge his formula for musical creation. Whitmore is young, and he is white, yet remarkably neither of these factors seem to be portrayed in his voice; a voice which is undoubtedly the central axis of his each and every song. He voice poses a pleasant quasi-aged, seasoned hoarseness; yet is as well a seemingly trained and tuned sound that communicates a sense of experience and understanding that truly belies his age. Whitmore is aware of the uniqueness of his voice and it is the central instrument of this album (and those prior), indeed there are rarely drum lines and even when there is one gets the sense that his voice is really what is keeping time.

Part of the uniqueness also has to do with the pre-stated sense of this music being of another time. Usually there are two instruments played one each track, sometimes three if you include a foot tap. There is a obvious lack of electronic sounds, save the ending of “There’s Hope For You” which has an overdriven guitar that almost sounds Kazu like. Yet I believe this is part of what William is trying to do, take us back to a different era of blues/country/folk (or whatever you would like to define it as). Whether these songs were played by a trio of musicians upon soapboxes at a moonshine-fueled summer country gathering in the late 19th century, or on a festival stage with today’s modern sound equipment; little would sound different save the overall volume. 

William introduces his tuneful time-warp directly, in the first track “Mutiny”, which employs a civil war’ish or New Orleans’ drum line approach to percussion combined solely with his own voice and uplifting chorus responses. This track really sets the stage and shows off the raspy, emotional voice that is the center of the Whitmore experience. But his musical talents are not confined to his voice, he can indeed compose well and communicate emotion with ease. This is shown in his second track, “Who Stole The Soul”, a beautiful medley of acoustic guitar, fiddle and human voice. In this track Whitmore sings to us in a kind of reflective dissonance that reminded me of Lyle Lovett with more gusto and pain. Whitmore is at his best when he trys to be a slightly different from his tried and true voice+acoustic guitar combination. Such as with “Lifetime Underground” a nice bluegrass like track that uses not only excellent steel guitar and fiddle, but storytelling as well. Yet at times Whitmore does become slightly redundant on some tracks, relying too much on the sound of his voice and not enough of the progression of his guitar, yet this author hesitates to say this with too much assertion as I am not accustomed to music that is truly of another time’s inspiration. This trait shown in his track “Johnny Law” and which starts off with an upbeat steel guitar and consistent toe tap, but always finds me moving onto the next song before its completion as it becomes static and redundant to my ear. The same is true for me and the closing track, “A Good Day To Die”, in which the guitar is overly soft and the title of the song repeated too often and always in the same manner. 

He might be aware of this aspect of his music being a setback with many of those listening so he aptly does not do employ this philosophy on every track. He keenly keeps his acoustic song “Hell Or High Water” short and more to the point, never allowing it to go on too far. On “Old Devils”, which might be his closest thing to a single, he definitely presents a good showcase of the dynamic center of his music, his voice. Yet he decides to slowly increase the speed of the song and even add in some toe tapping (yet still quiet) percussion, which greatly assists to keep one ear’s intrigued. 

All in all if you are into retro-blues, bluegrass, folk or alt-country William Elliot Whitmore should be on your short list of artists to check out. If not, he is still worthy of your attention, I just bet that many people will not understand or care to try to like his music. But what I do believe many people will find is that this music works perfectly well for calm background music, maybe at a BBQ or a backyard dinner, behind some friendly discussion or relaxation with a glass of wine. I doubt many of the general population, or audiophile population for that matter, would enjoy putting this album on and doing nothing but just listening. Yet when I put on this album, Animals In The Dark, I cannot help but imagine like I am in the heartland of America in the 19th century, maybe returning from participation in America’s necessary yet cannibalistic war, maybe reading some newly published Twain or Dickens on a levee overlooking the Mississippi slowly slither by. So if you are game for some music-induced time travel, do yourself a favor and check out William Elliot Whitmore’s album Animals In The Dark.  

Written By Sean Poynton Brna

“Imagine your favorite house DJ as a live band, making deep house music as danceable as a classic groove, and you’ll get a sense of what a Tortured Soul set is like.”
-    San Francisco Chronicle

Ethan White, J. Christian Urich and  and JKriv ( Jason Kriveloff) formed Tortured Soul as a live band in 2003 and began touring nationwide. Their site states that the band was “born of the simple yet adventurous belief that modern dance music can be performed completely live”, and “Brooklyn’s Tortured Soul packs dance floors with their unique live performances, while their recorded oeuvre pushes the genre boundaries of soul, dance, and pop.” They have received praise from artists as diverse as Barry Manilow and Lenny Kravitz, as well as diverse genre Dj’s.

Tortured Soul- \”Fall in Love\”

Since this blog is indeed one that leans towards the realms of Bluegrass and Blues (for some reason that cannot be recalled) it is only fitting that we discuss the emergence of The Heartless Bastards; a band that encapsulates both genres yet goes beyond them as well. Their 2009 release of “The Mountain” is a great example of this generic synergism, yet so well crafted that one who would proclaim to fancy neither blues nor bluegrass could still easily fall in love with this album without a second thought. That is because this band seems to be practiced and blessed with a touch of the spirit of timeless rock n’ roll, impeccable timing, and an excellent, balanced style of recording that seems to understand that it’s okay not to turn all the amps up to 11.

The band hails from Dayton, Ohio and is headed by guitarist and lead vocalist-rock queen-Erika Wennerstrom. She is supported by drummer Dave Colvin and bassist Jesse Ebaugh. The three piece has released two albums prior to The Mountain; in 2005 they introduced themselves with Stairs and Elevators and in 06′ brought us All This Time. Both of those albums, by the way, are wonderful works worthy of your attention (All This Time is especially kick-ass, but I wander…). The Mountain, however, sets itself apart by what I feel is a palpable maturity of song writing, where the tracks choose not to challenge your ear with complexity but with a heavy, thick, meditated, yet overall talented sense of rock composition. 

This album was recorded in Austin, with producer Mike McCarthy, who is well known for helping to make Spoon one of the preeminent bands around today. This might be the reason why the drums are so pleasantly driving and toe-tapping throughout the album without ever being over-bearing (just as on those great spoon LPs). Ringo Starr always said that one should play the drums for-and-to the vocalist, this forgotten recording method is employed by The Bastards masterfully within this album.

But what gives this band, and indeed this album, its staying power is the way they smoothly present and combine generic shifts. The opening track, The Mountain, shows us The Bastards straight up rock skills with a great quasi-psychedelic rock song that has Erika singing in a manner a la Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane. (There is a background guitar sound in that track that is engineered/placed so well that it sounded like it was coming from a separate speaker placed 6 feet behind my stereo!) Yet the very next track, Could Be So Happy, is just an almost folky interplay between only a guitar and the vocalist. Yet it is a beautifully written song that will have you mesmerized on the presented human voice. Then right away they break into, Early In The Morning, a louder rock n’ roll foot-tapper that praises the electric guitar while never forgetting the intricate balance of energy between the drums and the vocals. Then on the track, Had To Go, we are laid witness to a truly bluegrass expression with an initial amazing display of american-roots vocals (both in the writing and presentation) that slowly decays into solely instrumentation with a bewtiching fiddle and guitar interaction that makes one want to close their eyes and float down a slow moving river.

Balance is maybe a defining term for this album, which is why I believe many people will enjoy it; for one can hear in it what they would like to. Is that blues based or bluegrass? Is that more rock n’ roll or is that psychedelic? Is that track, Hold Your Head High, a slow dance or a climaxing rock ballad? 

All in all I put forth that The Mountain by The Heartless Bastards is not only one of the best albums of 2009 but is one of the best expressions of a balanced, non-overdriven, yet undoubtedly rock recordings I have heard in a while. One qualm I do have is that they seemed to have employed a compressor or effect that gives the voice a slightly crackling sound upon moments of higher emphasis (maybe to obtain a slightly retro sound I am not sure). Yet while when listening on vinyl this effect is usually subtle it is still a little much, this is shown mostly on the otherwise pleasant bluegrass song, So Quiet. Yet the effect’s, at times, harshness doesn’t translate well when listening to little headphones from an MP3. This effect notwithstanding, The Mountain is a wonderfully produced medley of blues, bluegrass, and quasi-psychedelic rock n’ roll that is sure to put The Heartless Bastards on the proverbial map. This author’s suggestion; check this album out now, preferably on vinyl!

By Sean Poynton Brna